The Waiting Room

We take ourselves and our health for granted every single day. We take for granted the version of ourselves we have worked so hard to build. You think you will always be able to hold onto that version of yourself, but then slowly it starts to fade, and you don’t know why.

Eventually, it reaches a breaking point. Your mind and body no longer function in the way they used to, and you can’t turn up for the people you love.

And the worst part is that when you try to be that version of yourself, when you try to fight through the sickness, you end up hurting yourself and the people around you. You can't perform or be cognitively available, so things go wrong, and then you beat yourself up even more.

So, in this case, the best action is no action.

But in the no action, you feel like your self is still missing. You’re in the waiting area, waiting for yourself to return so you can enjoy, exist, create, and show up for others again.

You take on more jobs than you should, more tasks, and you keep moving because that is what you know. Before, your plate was already overflowing with exercise, work, creating, relationships, family and anything else you could possibly squeeze in. And somehow you managed it. You lived life to the fullest and still complained about it.

Now that has all been taken away, and you’re lucky if you have the energy to do the washing up or walk to the shops.

You crave and miss the chaos and magic you created.

You wonder how you will ever have enough energy to operate at that level again. You feel like a failure, a hollow version of yourself. If you can’t see and be with your people, make your art, or help the people you love, you start to wonder: what is the point of existing like this?

What’s the point of having only one drop in your glass when it used to be overflowing?

You miss moaning about exercising. You miss the feeling of being overwhelmed while chasing your dream.

But now you also understand that all that anxiety, fear and confusion that has slowly been getting worse and worse over time was happening alongside something else: slowly watching the version of yourself you worked so hard to build fade away.

And now you know there is a reason.

A thing.

An unknown thing that might be present, but all the clues seem to point towards it.

The thing that is under-researched and underfunded.

The thing that stole you from yourself and from everyone else.

This thing that will hopefully soon be found and cut from your body, so you can slowly start to rebuild yourself, with grace and with hope that everyone and everything will still be waiting for you when you return.

But mainly, hoping that you will be there, waiting for yourself to return.